The short-lived ceasefire in the Gulf has now broken. Hours after American forces hit about 140 Iranian military targets in the early morning of Sunday, Iran launched a coordinated barrage of missiles and drones last night at five nations: Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and, according to several reports, Bahrain and the UAE. The wide array of Iranian counterattacks was the most comprehensive single-day response since the latest series of hostilities commenced, and it targeted some of the same Gulf capitals that have been trying to broker a cooling-off period between Washington and Tehran for months.

The impact was immediate but not so severe. In Qatar, three people, including a child, were injured by shrapnel from intercepted missiles, which were fired from two waves of ballistic missiles that were downed over Doha in Qatar. In the latest round of exchange, Kuwait said one of its workers was injured when a drone crashed into an offshore drilling rig operated by Kuwait Oil Company, though their military did not confirm that any Iranian missiles had landed in the country, and instead said they had been brought down within its own borders.Neither Kuwait's military nor the company confirmed that any Iranian missiles had fallen onto the country, though there was one casualty when a drone hit an offshore drilling rig operated by Kuwait Oil Company, wounding one worker, Kuwait said. Drone attacks occurred in Musandam and Al Wusta regions of Oman and the country's ambassador was called in to make a formal protest, Oman said. The UAE stated that its systems shot down missiles and drones, but clarified that the threats the system detected were not within the UAE's borders. The home of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, Bahrain, gave a third missile alert in a few days.

The Revolutionary Guards stated that the strikes were in response to the American offensive by hitting a command-and-control center and drone hangars at a US-backed base in Jordan, a radar site in Kuwait, refueling and carrier-support facilities in Oman, and a jet maintenance facility and command post at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, marking the first Iranian attack on the country's first air base since April. That is a significant piece of information. In such a struggle, Qatar has served as the unquestionable go-between and has hosted negotiations and delivered messages between Washington and Tehran when the two sides were unable to communicate directly. The act of striking or glancing at the mediator says a great deal about the status of Iran's calculations: mediation is real, but not powerful enough to buy immunity.

The trigger is what makes this round different from the strikes against seven Arab states by Iran in February and March where thousands of projectiles were fired over a period of about six weeks. It was lit up this time by attacks on commercial shipping by Iranians in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's seaborne oil and liquefied natural gas travels. The US Treasury, which had lifted temporary exemptions on Iranian oil sanctions, also pulled back from the process of lifting the restrictions, and Washington launched its third attack on Iranian territory in just a few days, after Iranian forces attacked a Cyprus-flagged container ship and, earlier, a Qatari LNG tanker. Again Tehran answered by attacking American military targets dotted throughout the region instead of American military forces, and by restating that it and not international convention determines which alley through Hormuz is safe.

That's the true story of this pattern. Now, Iran has repeatedly shown it can reach any Gulf state with hosts of American troops on short notice but it nonetheless keeps working to minimize the damage to the point that it would not trigger a full-scale war it might not be able to win. No Gulf refinery has been shut down. No LNG terminals have been de-commissioned. There has been no significant loss of production among major producers. Oil has continued to flow, albeit more nervously and on routes that are on the edge of the Omani coast where Iran does not have full control, but traffic with tankers through the strait has been reduced from a high of eighteen to twenty-two ships a day to a trickle of one or two ships a day on the worst days.

The markets have taken the shock in a piecemeal fashion, not in panic. A sign of the latest exchange, which saw Brent crude spike as high as $78.82 earlier in the cycle before easing on hope that mediators will help calm the markets, was a jump back above $76, the price at which the oil had been trading since being pushed back to pre-war levels by OPEC+ and Gulf oil producers looking to capture more Asian market share. WASHINGTON's apparent preference for orderly equity and bond markets over a spiraling market is reason enough, Citi analysts said, for both capitals not to let this get worse. Other energy analysts are not so optimistic and believe that the passage of the Hormuz will remain below pre-war levels for a few months, and that such incidents will become commonplace instead of an exception.

The diplomatic repercussions have been rapid and overwhelmingly negative. Saudi Arabia denounced "repeated infraction on neighbouring countries' sovereignty. The UAE, Qatar and Egypt called again for calm. But Qatar itself, which has most stridently pushed for the channel to remain open, has described the barrage as a "dangerous escalation" that could undermine the very diplomacy it has been promoting. None of that criticism seems to be getting through to Tehran in any way that is likely to cause them to change their behavior, and none of it applies to the other big problem with the framework signed in June: a memorandum of understanding that so broadly defines control of the strait that both sides can say they are complying with it while believing that they are not.

In the Middle East, however, the game has changed and will continue to influence the region beyond the scope of this conversation. Air defense buildup over the years is being depleted at a rate that worries regional planners; and the presence of American forces, which has been seen as a guarantee of security, has become a liability when Washington and Tehran are at odds. However, whatever is agreed upon in the next Doha round or other talks, the region has learned there is no magic bullet in the form of a signed piece of paper to stop missiles in the sky.